CT Ranked 23rd in Nation in Pay Equity; Women Earn 78 Cents to Men’s Dollar

What do Connecticut, South Dakota, South Carolina, Wisconsin and Washington have in common?  The paycheck gap between women and men in the five states is identical – and ranked 23rd among the nation’s 50 states.  In Connecticut and the other four states, women, on average, receive 78 cents for doing equivalent work as men earning a dollar, according to an analysis published by Forbes magazine.ACS logo

The top states – with the smallest earnings gap differential - were Maryland, Nevada, Vermont (a three-way tie for first place), New York, California, Florida, Hawaii, and Maine.

For more than a decade, the comparison between the median earnings of full-time employed men and women in the U.S. has remained a stubborn 77 percent – that is, women earn roughly 77 cents on the dollar. A glimmer of prgender-pay-gap-graphic-finalogress is reflected in the total of 16 states in which women are now earning 80 cents or more to every male dollar, twice the count of 2010.

In Connecticut, just a penny above the national average, full-time annual earnings for women is $47,900; for men $61,097, according to the data.

Forbes analyzed data from the latest 2012 American Community Survey by the U.S. Census Bureau, using the mean earnings for full-time, year-round female workers by state.

Forbes pointed out that in Connecticut and New Jersey, both contiguous with New York, “women can expect healthy salaries—upwards of $47,000 as a median isn’t bad—but they earn 79 and 78 cents on the dollar respectively. Historically speaking, where there’s a large concentration of jobs in very high-paying occupations like finance, media and law, you’ll often (and unfortunately) find more men in those occupations than women which can skew the overall pay gap.”

The top 25 states:

  1. Maryland (tie-1st)
  2. Nevada (tie-1st)
  3. Vermont (tie-1st)
  4. New York
  5. California
  6. Florida
  7. Hawaii
  8. Maine
  9. Arizona
  10. North Carolina
  11. Georgia
  12. Delaware
  13. Rhode Island
  14. New Mexico
  15. Colorado
  16. Minnesota
  17. Texas
  18. Massachusetts
  19. Oregon
  20. Virginia
  21. New Jersey
  22. Illinois
  23. Connecticut
  24. Washington(tie-23rd)
  25. South Dakota(tie-23rd)
  26. Wisconsin (tie-23rd)
  27. South Carolina (tie-23rd)